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Robert Frederick Sink was a career U.S. Army officer who served in both World War II and the Korean War. He was born in 1905 in Lexington, North Carolina, and attended Trinity College (now Duke) for a year before transferring to the United States Military Academy at West Point. He graduated in 1927 and was initially commissioned a second lieutenant and assigned to the 8th Infantry Regiment at Fort Screven, Georgia. Other assignments followed in various units, as well as a six-month assignment attached to the Civilian Conservation Corps in the second half of 1933, before he entered the United States Army Infantry School at Fort Benning, Georgia, in 1934. He then served as a company commander, first with the 54th Infantry Regiment based in the Philippines, and then with the 25th Infantry Division stationed in Arizona.
In November 1940 Captain Sink was transferred to the 501st Parachute Battalion and entered the jump school at Fort Benning, Georgia. While attending the jump school he was promoted to major. He also caught the eye of Lieutenant Colonel William C. Lee, commander of the U.S. Provisional Parachute Group and considered to be the father of the American airborne. In August 1941, Sink was transferred to the newly-organized 503rd Parachute Battalion and assigned to command. In February 1942, Sink was promoted to lieutenant colonel. In the following month, the 503rd Parachute Battalion was combined with the 504th Parachute Battalion to form the 503rd Parachute Regiment. Colonel William M. Miley became commander of the regiment; Sink became his Executive Officer (second-in-command). The regiment transferred to Fort Bragg. When Miley was promoted to brigadier general in June and assigned to become assistant division commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, Sink was promoted to colonel and replaced him as commander of the 503rd.
In July 1942, Sink was reassigned to command the new 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, based at Camp Toccoa, Georgia. In June 1943, the regiment was assigned to become part of the 101st Airborne Division, commanded by Lee, by now a major general. The division was sent to England in the following month to begin preparations for participating in the D-Day Campaign (Operation Overlord). While retaining command of the 506th, Sink was also assigned to command the division’s parachute jumping school, a position that he held from November 1943 to early May 1944. At the end of his tenure as commander of the jumping school, he received a commendation from the commander of the 101st, Brigadier General Maxwell D. Taylor (who had replaced Lee when the latter suffered a heart attack), for having completely trained its participants in only two weeks, as opposed to the normal four weeks that the course covered at Fort Benning. As commander of the 506th Battalion, Sink participated in some of the most significant operations in the European Theater of Operations, including D-Day, the Arnhem Campaign (Operation Market Garden), the defense of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge, and the advance into Germany. He was popular with his men, who nicknamed the regiment “the Five-Oh-Sink.” Sink was portrayed by actor Dale Dye in the television mini-series Band of Brothers.
After World War II, Colonel Sink served as assistant division commander of the 101st, after which he was assigned to the United States Military Academy at West Point to command the post garrison. There he rejoined his former wartime commander Maxwell Taylor, who was commandant of West Point. Other important postwar postings included chief of staff to the U.S. Military Government of the Japanese Ryukyu Islands, headquartered at Okinawa, followed by promotion to brigadier general and assignment as assistant commander of the 7th Infantry Division during the Korean War in 1951. In the following year he was assigned to the post of assistant commander of the 11th Airborne Division, based at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and in 1953 became the commanding general of the 7th Armored Division, stationed at Camp Roberts in California. Towards the end of 1953 he became the commanding general of the 44th Infantry Division at Fort Lewis in Washington state. From October 1954 to January1955 he was director of the Joint Airborne Troop Board, based at Fort Bragg, which was assigned to develop tactics and doctrine for airborne operations in conjunction with other branches of military service. From 1955 to early 1957 he was stationed in Brazil, where he was chairman of the U.S. Delegation to the Joint Brazil-United States Military Commission.
He next commanded the XVIII Air Corps and Fort Bragg from May 1957 to July 1960. In May 1958, the XVIII Air Corps became the nucleus of the Strategic Army Corps, a pioneering rapid deployment force, and Sink was tasked with commanding it as well as the XVIII proper. In September 1959 he was promoted to lieutenant general. In addition to his responsibilities commanding the XVIII Air Corps, the Strategic Army Corps, and Fort Bragg, Sink briefly commanded the Third Army, stationed at Fort McPherson, George. In July 1960 he was appointed commander of the United States Caribbean Command, based in the Panama Canal Zone. He retired from the service in February 1961, for reasons of declining health.
Sink died of pulmonary emphysema at Fort Bragg in December 1965. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
References:
Stephen E. Ambrose, Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest (1992).
Stephen E. Ambrose, D-Day June 6, 1944: The Climatic Battle of World War II (1994).
Mark Bando, 101st Airborne: The Screaming Eagles in World War II (2007).
Clay Blair, Ridgeway’s Paratroopers: The American Airborne in World War II (1985).
Gordon A. Harrison, Cross Chanel Attack, U.S. Army in World War II: The European Theater of Operations (2002).
Charles B. MacDonald, A Time for Trumpets: The Untold Story of the Battle of the Bulge (1984).
Cornelius Ryan, A Bridge Too Far (1974).
Robert F. Sink, “Strategic Army Corps,” Ordnance, 44:239 (March-April 1960): 215-217.
Robert Frederick Sink Papers, Joyner Library, East Carolina University (for the collection guide for the papers, see Robert Frederick Sink Papers - Collection Guides (ecu.edu) ).
W. R. van Horn, ed., Currahee Scrapbook, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 20 July 1942-4 July 1945 (Germany, 1945) 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment (core.ac.uk)
Dick Winters with Cole C. Kingseed, Beyond Band of Brothers: The War Memoirs of Major Dick Winters (2006).
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